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Talk:Point State Park
A Fresh Look: At Point State Park, you'll find the oldest kid on the block :Monday, September 29, 2008 By Alan Petrucelli She's had a few nips and tucks, she's been lifted and leveled, but for a woman who recently turned 244 years old, she looks damn good. I call her a she because only a woman could have survived the slings and arrows and trials and tribulations and drama and threatened destruction that comes with such a hard (and historical) life. If you have a problem with that, bring it straight to the source and prepare for a stone-cold stare. Visit the Fort Pitt Block House and prepare also for a journey back into time, back when British Colonial forces and Native Americans were the main events, when the only Bush in the news was the Battle of Bushy Run, when the only Pontiac roaming the streets was the chief who began a war. I visit the Block House on a humid Saturday morning and am amazed that such a structure still stands, right there, at its original site in Point State Park. Built in 1764 by Col. Henry Bouquet, the Block House is actually a pentagonal redoubt, not only the last surviving building of the original Fort Pitt but also the oldest authenticated structure west of the Allegheny Mountains. It may just be 20 feet by 20 feet, but back in the frontier days it would have been considered a mansion. At various points, long after the property had fulfilled its original purpose of protecting Fort Pitt from musket fire, the Block House served as a trading post, a glass bottle warehouse, a two-family home and a store. Now, it is a must-see tourist site, still standing and sound because of another smart-thinking woman, Mary Elizabeth Schenley (yes, that Schenley). Mary inherited the property from her grandfather, Col. James O'Hara, and saved it from destruction by donating it to the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1894. Those gals restored the Block House to its original appearance and run it today. The displays are small but informative; the placard accompanying the vintage lice comb taught me that the term "nitpicking" was coined from the arduous process of removing the egg nits of lice one by one to delouse one's head of lice. It takes about 15 minutes to tour the place (no one's allowed upstairs, but a good stretch of your neck will allow you to see all there is to see), but several hours to allow what happened here -- what still happens here -- to sink in. Curator Kelly Linn will point out necessary changes and alterations made throughout the years; the most recent foundation face-lift was in 2007. (About 80 percent of the wood is original; Ms. Linn points out small sections that have been repaired, restored and replaced.) Ms. Linn has been working here for the past three years and is used to being stuffed into such a small sweltering structure. The Block House cannot be air-conditioned -- actually it can be, but the duct work, she says, would "ruin the historical look and nature of the building." I am fascinated by the thin slit "windows" that riddle the building. Ms. Linn tells me they are the original 3-inch gun loops, small holes through which a gun could be fired, and she already knows how my mind works. Rain doesn't come in, she explains, because "we stuff pillows into the holes at night." With that, she pulls out a sample of Block House friend Cora Russell's handiwork: a 9-by-30-inch foam plug covered with black fabric. There are nine such pillows, and every night, Ms. Linn squishes and squashes them into each loop ... and removes them the following morning. The next time I see Martha Stewart I must remind myself to tell her about such a functional and fashionable designer's touch. Less fashionable but necessarily functional is the dress of aluminum fencing that the Block House began wearing in 2007, preventing visitors from getting closer than four feet from the house's exterior. This addition was made mandatory, thanks to JHS and LGD and all the other anonymous vandals who carved their initials in the wood and stonework or who chose to pick off a piece of the wood as a souvenir, perhaps thinking if they can't change history, they can become part of it. (The Block House is still not immune to crime; earlier this month, someone stole a replica tomahawk by jumping two fences, knocking out one of the pillows and reaching through a gun loop.) Ms. Linn unlocks the gate and takes me on a tour of the exterior, allowing me to get real close and personal, pointing out the letter-perfect vandalism. I wonder if George Washington stopped here for some R&R, then signed the unofficial guest book with a GW. No luck, explains Ms. Linn, who reminds me that the president visited the Point three times but never made it to what she amusingly calls the Commonwealth's "first split-level home." I leave with a smile on my face, realizing that the oldest kid on the block is, for a newbie like me, the newest. To commemorate Pittsburgh's 250th birthday this year, newcomer and writer/editor Alan W. Petrucelli, the marketing/communications director at Dance Alloy Theater, is sharing his insights with us weekly. He lives in Churchill and can be reached at entrpt@aol.com. First published on September 29, 2008 at 12:00 am